


Ripples

by LostinFic



Series: Mercier x Betty oneshots [14]
Category: A Passionate Woman (TV), Spies of Warsaw (TV)
Genre: Bathtubs, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29323641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: Betty can't decide between reading or taking a bath. Jean-François has a solution.
Relationships: Betty (A Passionate Woman)/Jean-François Mercier
Series: Mercier x Betty oneshots [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/858152
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20





	Ripples

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, February 9th is "Read in the bathtub" day.

Mercier watched with curiosity as Betty went back and forth between the bedroom and the washroom. She’d finally put her son to sleep— he had yet to adjust to a new home in a new country with a new man in his mother’s life— and even after a long day of work she couldn’t seem to be able to sit down.

Worrying her bottom lip, Betty picked up a book, she nodded to herself decidedly, took two steps out of the room, then turned on her heels to put the book back on the nightstand.

“Betty?”

His voice startled her. She hadn’t noticed him leaning against the wall of the corridor.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t decide between reading and taking a bath. I’ve only got one hour left before I fall asleep, and then it starts all over again.” 

“It” being turning his still war-worn Paris apartment into a suitable home for them, while trying to learn French and taking care of everyone from her son to stray kittens, to the elderly lady next door. And, on top of that, dealing with her unpleasant husband who refused to grant her a divorce. All of this mostly without Mercier’s help as he had to be at work all day. 

One hour was all she had to herself.

“Why don’t you read in the bath?” he asked

“It’s a library book, what if I drop it in the water?” She looked at the worn out book as if it was a rare first edition. “I was just getting to the good part, but my neck’s aching.” She rolled her tense shoulders.

“Then I will do the reading for you. While you’re in the bath!”

“What? Oh, but that book, it’s really not your cup of tea. It’s a romance.”

Mercier looked affronted. “Have you not enough romance with me?”

“Oh, love, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Well, that settles it, then.”

Betty yelped when he picked her up, bridal style, and carried her into the bathroom.

As the clawfoot tub filled with hot water, Betty tied her curly hair up and removed her makeup. Mercier carried in candles from the bedroom and the kitchen and arranged them around the room. The gilded-frame mirror multiplied the dancing flames, and lent a warmer hue to the faded blue paint on the walls.

The air turned steamy so Mercier removed his shirt. He sat on a footstool by the tub and watched, not with curiosity this time, but with admiration, as Betty unbuttoned her dress and let it slip down her body.

“It’s the book you’re supposed to look at,” she quipped, but her teasing smile was short-lived when she caught her reflection in the mirror, and something clouded her gaze.

“I wish I could read you like a book, ma belle,” he said sincerely.

“It would be a very boring book,” she said, removing her stockings, then she met his eyes in the mirror. “Chapters after chapters of the same line: ‘she loves Jean-François’.”

“My favourite quote.”

She stood in front of him, naked, and bent down to kiss him.

“Read to me, please.”

She sank into the warm water to her chin.  


Mercier smirked when he noticed the title of her book:  _ Lady Chatterley’s Lover _ was still banned for obscenity in her home country. Naughty Betty. He imagined her blushing furiously, attempting to hide it amongst other books, as she faced the librarian.

He crossed his legs and, elbow propped up on the edge of the bath, found the bookmarked page.

Although English wasn't his first language, he paced himself and the prose rolled off his tongue fluently. He made his voice low and relaxing for Betty. Warmth spread through his chest when she finally rested her head on a rolled towel and closed her eyes. He gently brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, and she pressed her flushed cheek to his hand. Soft splashes and drips echoed against the porcelain tiles. Condensation beaded on the high window panes. And Betty sighed contentedly.  


In the book, Lady Chatterley was in a chicken coop with the groundskeeper, crying over some baby chicks for reasons Mercier didn’t understand. Betty’s doe eyes opened again, full of sympathy for the protagonist.

“ _But then she put her hands over her face and felt that really her heart was broken and nothing mattered anymore_ ,” Mercier read. “Are you sure you want me to continue?”

“Yes.”

“ _He laid his hand on her shoulder, and softly, gently, it began to travel down the curve of her back, blindly, with a blind stroking motion, to the curve of her crouching loins. And there his hand softly, softly, stroked the curve of her flank, in the blind instinctive caress._ ”

Betty crossed her arms on the edge of the tub and rested her chin atop them. Her skin glistened with water and scented oil. Wet hair coiled on the nape of her neck. In the novel, the groundskeeper took the lady back to his hut and laid a blanket on the floor. Betty’s breath quickened in anticipation.

Mercier read on, “ _Yet the hand knew, too, how to unclothe her where it wanted. He drew down the thin silk sheath, slowly, carefully, right down and over her feet. Then with a quiver of exquisite pleasure he touched the warm soft body, and_ —”

“Jean-François?”

“Hm?”

“Get in the tub.” 

This time, there was nothing ambiguous about the darkness in her gaze.

“Yes, my Lady.”


End file.
